The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) invites grant applications for research on diet composition
and energy balance. This announcement is made together with 8 other components of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
and is supported by 2 grant funding mechanisms: R21 and R01.*

Overweight and obesity have increased dramatically in prevalence in the United States. More than 60 percent of the U.S. population
is overweight. Environmental changes over the past two decades have increased sedentary behaviors, decreased physical activity,
and increased consumption of more energy-dense foods and larger portion sizes. Although an imbalance in energy-consumption
and expenditure is required to promote inappropriate weight gain, the relative contributions of each to the burgeoning obesity
epidemic remain in dispute.

Topics of research interest include, but are not limited to: the impact of diets varying in levels of protein, carbohydrate,
fat, phytochemicals, or ethanol on appetite, food selection and intake, and energy expenditure; the impact of diet composition
on neuroendocrine, gastrointestinal, and other factors that may impact energy balance; brain imaging studies in humans and
non-human primates to assess positron emission tomography, functional magnetic resonance, or cerebral blood flow imaging responses
to specific dietary constituents; development of methods to assess dietary composition; dietary composition effects on the
magnitude and time course of neurobehavioral and physiological responses to sleep loss, and the interaction of these effects
with BMI, gender, age, and ethnicity; and life-stage, racial/ethnic, and gender-related factors underlying response to diet
composition, including studies in children, adolescents, and adults of various ages.